The Raft
by C.B. Magique
Summary: [Princess Story side-story] When any proposed idea is met with the phrase "Sure. Why not?" things can either go fabulously well or terrifically wrong. This time it has been proposed that Kairi and Zexion shall use the power of science to make a raft fly. It is one hell of a first date.


**I've been busy on my fanfiction recently. This has to stop because I have more important things to do but at the same time I have all these _things_ that I want to make fluffy. Zexiri again because I'm practically married to this pairing (but don't tell SoRiku because I was practically married to that one first, even though I never wrote anything for it). **

**IMPORTANT: this story is a side-story to a freaking fanfic novel I finished writing over a year ago. If you read Princess Story and like Zexiri, then this is a treat for you. If you haven't read Princess Story then this is what you need to know: stuff happened in that fic and as a result of those events Kairi started falling out of love with Sora and is now dating Zexion. And this is not a crazy AU, this story is heavily based in canon with some adjustments.  
**

**This little one-shot does make references to stuff that happened/was said in Princess Story, so I suppose it's a little bit spoiler-ish; that's really the most of what you have to keep in mind. The most jarring (aside from the crack!pairing) will probably be Kairi's ice skating - that's a thing she learned how to do in Princess Story. **

**Despite this being a fanfic of a fanfic, I don't think I entirely own the rights to this, so please don't sue~! :3**

**Also, give me reviews. I like those. Every review I receive is like a biscuit. I do love biscuits.**

* * *

**The Raft**

* * *

It was unusually cool inside the secret cave of the play island. The normally sandy floor was covered in ice and slush that was melting quickly in the tropical heat. Kairi could speed around this makeshift ice rink so easily nowadays and though it had taken weeks of confidence-building and practise she could even twirl, spin and jump.

She skated into the middle of the cave. Metal scraped ice satisfyingly as she spun on one skate and then dared to jump. She turned one full loop and landed on her skates safely. A round of applause followed her trick and she turned to grin and bow for her audience. Sora and Riku sat side-by-side on the boulder – which had now become an island in a sea of ice – giving encouragement wherever it was warranted. Sora covered the ground in another layer of Blizzard magic since it was starting to get a bit watery. Kairi went for another jump but Sora's effort hadn't done much to improve the rink. She slipped over a rill and landed ungracefully on her backside.

"Kairi! Are you okay?" Sora asked, leaping off the rock and sliding across the floor to help her up. However, by the time he got there she'd already gotten to her feet on her own.

"I'm fine," she replied. "I guess the floor is a little wrecked."

"You've been at this for about two hours now," Riku said, getting off the boulder and sliding to where Sora and Kairi were. "Maybe it's time to call it quits."

"Yeah," Kairi agreed. "I think it's nearly lunchtime, I'm getting kind of hungry. Do you want to eat at my place today?"

"Your dad won't mind?"

"Of course not!" Kairi giggled, hitting Riku playfully on the shoulder. "He knows you two only have the purest of intentions for me."

The three of them laughed out aloud at that and left the cave. The air was stiflingly hot when they crawled out, a far cry from the damp coolness they had enjoyed inside. Summer was approaching; a humid, rainy season with dark storm clouds never far from sight. The air was already so thick that it was almost suffocating, even to the trio who were used to this weather.

Riku unzipped his shirt to fan himself with it. "I can't wait to get back inside a building."

"No kidding," Sora said, doing the same with his shirt. They both made a beeline for the jetty and Sora briefly turned around to call: "Kairi, c'mon!"

"I'm coming," she called back, crawling over to swing her legs over the retaining wall. "Just let me take my skates off."

The island was deserted today save for the three of them. As she was unlacing her skates, Kairi took in the quietness around her. Without the children to fill it the island lapsed into calm serenity with only the whispers of the wind and the waves to break the silence. Yet despite being empty it was far from desolate. The beach had a soul of its own that enriched the atmosphere without anyone around. Her eyes scanned the shore, taking in that ethereal glow of life, which had to be felt more than it could be seen through the gloss of the leaves and the shimmer of the sea.

The natural earthy colours of the trees, beach and wooden structures were suddenly broken by a mark of black on the bridge. Kairi blinked a focused on it, smiling with recognition. She waved to him as she ran across the beach with her skates in hand. Sora and Riku were already unmooring their boats. Kairi excitedly jumped into hers, almost tipping it over as she did.

"Whoa, I've never seen you so excited about lunch before," Riku joked.

Kairi just smiled secretively and released her boat to the waves, knowing she would be coming back very soon.

* * *

The tragically bent trunk of the paupu tree was an excellent viewing spot, Zexion found. He could see to the main island if he turned to the right but when looking straight ahead the only thing for miles was ocean. Watching the surface glisten and ripple was a meditative experience. It calmed his mind, easing the turmoil of his thoughts that had been growing stormier every day. His Lexicon lay open in his lap, flicking through paragraphs upon paragraphs of information, letting them appear only to sink away to allow more words to write themselves in. It was a review of notes that Zexion had already learnt off by heart and yet he was still so lost as to where to go from here.

Someone pinched him in the side. He gasped, startled enough to almost fall of the tree. He turned around, seeing a familiar redhead snickering playfully.

"It's been a while," Kairi said, climbing over the trunk to sit down beside him. "I'm glad you came to visit."

"It would have been unforgiveable if I didn't," Zexion replied impassively. "With the capacity for interworld travel, I had – as you put it – no excuse." Kairi grinned cheekily. "Are your friends still around?"

He looked down to the jetty and the beach but they were truly empty now. Kairi's boat drifted alone at its mooring and even from across the sea no more could be seen. Kairi shook her head.

"They went to Sora's house after lunch. They've got homework to do before school tomorrow," she explained. Then she added as an afterthought: "Well, Sora has homework to do. Riku was probably organised enough to do his early."

"What about you?"

"Organised~!" Kairi sang. "Although there's this one thing in biology that I just know I'm going to forget in the test this week."

"Have faith in yourself. You're a smart girl. I used to find comfort in the fact that biology is mostly an exercise in memorisation, especially at lower levels of the study."

"Well it sure isn't as fun as you made it out to be," Kairi pouted. "It's so boring."

"Acquisition of the basic information can be dry," Zexion said, turning to her, "but it's worth the effort when the whole world is opened to you."

Kairi looked at him and they sat gazing into each other's eyes. To him, her eyes were full of light but she could only see the blankness in his. She smiled at him sadly. "I think I understand how Ienzo must have felt."

"Pardon?"

"Wanting to discover things, learn more," she sighed. "Wanting to see if there's something more to life than just what's in front of you. If you think about it, Sora, Riku and I were just like that too. Especially Riku. You know, we built a raft over a year ago, before all of the craziness that came with travelling to the universe. We were going to use it to sail to another world but I think that just sounds silly now."

"It does," Zexion agreed, noting the disgruntled look on Kairi's face and changing tack: "but it's an admirable effort. Although, how do you think you would have found another world on a raft?"

"I suppose we just thought we'd sail to the next island and then the next one after that until we found one that was… I don't know, different."

Zexion nodded, tracing the naïve thought process mentally. He could see how – to the eyes of children who had lived their entire lives on islands – the universe could just look like an ocean with all of the worlds dotted throughout like islands.

"Things sort of worked out, though," Kairi continued. "But it would have been nice to have gone on the trip the way we'd planned it."

"It was unfortunate that you didn't have the training to give your raft the power of flight."

Kairi burst into a bout of soft laughter. The notion of making a raft fly sounded ridiculous even after all of the things she'd seen.

"If we had the tools to modify it, the right materials and did all of the calculations I'm sure we could make something work," he muttered, becoming lost in his own head. "Getting into space would be another matter entirely, although merely getting in the air would be simple, even without magic if there was a good wind, however, we'd still need a source of propulsion that would have to be fuelled in some way—"

"Wait, are you serious?" Kairi interrupted, leaning towards him curiously. "Can we really make a raft fly?"

"Yes, of course," Zexion said, eyes widening in alarm when she was suddenly in his personal space. "Mathematically, it's difficult to conceptualise but plainly speaking, getting things into the air is actually not very difficult. The difficulty will be in making it stay elevated for a period of time but I could calculate that using some standard principles."

He kept on ranting about mechanical physics and vectors but Kairi just stared with her mouth hanging open. "So you could make our raft fly?"

Zexion suddenly stopped his self-absorbed mumbling to raise an enquiring eyebrow at her.

"Is that something we could do? Today?"

Zexion pondered that for a moment. "I think so. But it would depend—"

"Then let's do it!" Kairi exclaimed, jumping off the paupu tree and tugging Zexion by the wrist.

"…Sure. Why not?"

* * *

Kairi took him around to the other side of the island where she knew the raft was still parked. However, when they found it she blushed and rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. The raft wasn't the nicely crafted accomplishment she remembered. She had been proud of their effort but the months of neglect had caused it to deteriorate. The sail was falling from its mast and some of the wood was starting to get soft and rotten. Zexion put a hand to his chin, taking up a thoughtful pose as he examined it.

"Not minding the current state," he murmured, "this vessel certainly is workable."

"Really? Great!" Kairi grinned. "So what do we have to do?"

Zexion approached the raft and lifted it experimentally. "It's fairly light for what it is but I think we can remove some of the logs without affecting its integrity as a flotation device. We need something to seal all of the gaps in the deck without adding too much to its self-weight."

"Tell me what materials and tools we'll need and I'll go find them," Kairi offered. "I'll bet most of the stuff Sora, Riku and I used to build the raft is still around somewhere."

He nodded. Looking around, he then bent down to pick up a chalky, white stone in the sand. "While you do that I'll draw up a blueprint and calculate the requirements for achieving lift."

Satisfied with that arrangement, they negotiated on the materials that were best suited to their cause. Kairi ran around the island eagerly looking for them. She found most of their old tools and extra lengths of rope and cloth in the various cubbies, all of them in an equally neglected state as the raft.

By the time she returned with her bounty wrapped up in a sail, Zexion had covered a cliff face in white diagrams and annotations. She quietly approached, admiring his work nostalgically. The white on the cliff was just like the scratches in the secret cave but whereas the cave contained the whims and dreams of children, Zexion's work was a jargon-filled expression of his knowledge. Each stroke of every symbol was an abstract representation of a universe he knew how to describe so precisely.

"Are you done?" she asked as he stood up and stepped back to examine his work as a whole.

"Yes, I'm sure these figures will work," he said, turning to look at the raft. "The only thing left to take care of is, well… the actual work."

Kairi giggled. "Don't worry, I'll help with all of that. If we work really hard together I'll bet we can do this in no time at all."

She put her cloth down and let the corners fall. Zexion picked up a chipped, rusted saw and looked it over.

"Well…" he muttered, "we'd better get started, then."

It was well into late afternoon when Kairi and Zexion were finally able to put down their tools and admire their work. The raft had been transformed while still retaining its original shape. They'd pulled out some of the deck boards and filled them in with large leaves, added two extra sails to the side like fins (or wings), they'd chipped and sanded the front of the boat to have a rounded edge and poking out at the back were three propellers – two small ones on each side and a larger one in the middle. The main sail was proudly back on its mast and was already billowing in the strong afternoon breeze.

Zexion sighed and wiped the sweat of his face. He'd already discarded the top half of his outfit and he was still uncomfortably hot. Kairi's clothes were short enough to be bearable to wear but even then there were the tell-tale wet patches on the white part of her dress. They both stepped back, almost bumping into each other as they did.

"It looks pretty good," Kairi commented, chest swelling with accomplishment.

Zexion nodded. "The only thing left to do is a test flight to see if it will actually fly. Do you want to be the pilot?"

"Do I ever!" Kairi exclaimed, running up to the rebuilt raft and jumping onto it excitedly.

A rather dangerous-looking contraption threaded with rope sat in the middle of the deck just in front of the mast. Two levers poked out of it, attached to the contraption in a complex way that Zexion was sure would need a few hours just to explain them to Kairi. She had left the building of that particular part entirely up to him.

"Wait," Zexion said, coming up behind the raft and slipping his hands under it. "We need it out on the water first."

Kairi hopped off over the front and pulled, shuffling backwards in the surf while Zexion heaved it from behind. Rafts were much heavier than Kairi thought they would be, even this version that was modified to conserve weight surprised her. It became easier as the water supported more and more of the vessel, yet Kairi was still struggling to keep up with Zexion's pace.

"Zexion, wait—eep!" she squeaked as the raft almost rolled over her and dunked her underwater. They were still in the sandy shallows and she scrambled to pull herself above the surface again, flailing and reaching out for the edge of the raft. A hand grabbed her wrist and her hand twisted around to latch onto it. Zexion pulled her up until her head was out of the water, which seemed to be almost effortless for him. With better bearings, she was able to orient herself correctly, crouching upright in the water. "You're actually really strong," she remarked. "Why is that?"

"I suppose…" he replied with a shrug. "They made me go on missions."

'Missions' clearly referred to whatever operations the Organisation was up to but Zexion said it in such a put-out way, like a petulant child, that it made Kairi laugh. She hauled herself out of the water. The raft was out far enough to float and was slowly drifting away from the shore now that both sailors were on board. They used this time to let Zexion show her how the rope-and-lever contraption worked as steering sticks to tilt the sails. Wind was already filling the canvas and made Kairi shiver in her wet clothes but it was welcome in the heat. When they were finally far enough out to sea, Zexion lowered the propellers into the water.

"I'm going to use a very strong Aeroga spell to turn the propellers," he explained. "That should move us fast enough to take off, as well as provide enough thrust in the air to maintain flight."

"I thought we were doing this with science."

"We are. The magic is simply going to act as a power source in place of the motor we don't have to generate speed but we aren't relying on magically facilitated flight. I promise the only thing actually keeping us in the air will be physics." He caught the apprehensive look on her face. "And besides, there's nothing unscientific about magic. Science is merely the catch-all term for the technical tools, theories and frameworks used to explain how the natural world works and since magic is part of the natural world it does have its place in scientific academia and application."

"It's not that," Kairi said, glancing at the sails nervously. "It's what you said about physics… maybe we should just use magic after all; I don't know how physics works."

"You don't know how magic works either."

"Touché."

"I'm going to start the propellers," Zexion announced, summoning his Lexicon. "Get ready because we're going to go quite fast."

Kairi nodded and tightened her grip on the sticks. Zexion flipped his book open, drawing forth two casts of Aeroga and one of Aerogun. He counted down to the moment aloud, hovering the spells over their targets and crouching to get in a stable position for the inevitable lurch. She gently bit her lip and took a breath that was shaky with excitement before Zexion announced confidently:

"Go."

The spells dropped and the propellers whirred to life. The sticks suddenly went tight, trying to rip themselves out of Kairi's grasp when the raft rapidly gained speed. As it zoomed over the water the front end began to lift.

"Don't forget to catch the wind," Zexion called to her.

Kairi shifted the sticks, feeling them protest against manipulation. Eventually she managed to turn the sails slightly. It was just enough. The drag from the forward motion was cancelled out by wind filling the sails, pushing forward and pulling up. Kairi's heart leaped as the raft gradually broke away from the surface of the sea. She pushed and pulled with the levers, ensuring the sails captured enough wind to keep rising until they were so high up that Kairi could look down on the beach and the town, the little play island right behind them.

"Wow!" she screamed, cackling with delight. "This is incredible!"

She steered the raft to turn around, just like she was steering a sailing boat, only in the air. The raft glided like a kite without a string, picking its own path through the wind streams. She took it in a loop around the play island, marvelling at what it looked like from above. It was barely recognisable – everything that she was used to seeing around her was now below her, laid out like something in a picture book. The wind up here whistled strongly through her hair and clothes, eddying over every curve of her body. As the raft glided over the strait she closed her eyes for a moment. _"Is this how a bird feels?"_ she wondered.

All of a sudden the raft dropped in altitude and wobbled. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped.

"Aeroga is wearing off," Zexion informed her, keeping a keen eye on the propellers. He glanced at her. "I think the wind might be changing too. This would be a good time to make a landing."

Kairi agreed, swallowing as she flexed her fingers. Her hands were already aching from holding onto the levers so tightly. She turned the sails but the wind abruptly buffeted the other way and the raft made another sudden drop. Kairi pulled the control sticks but she couldn't move as fast as the wind. Neither could the raft, apparently, as one of the ropes in the contraption at her feet snapped, whipping her across the ankle. Zexion dived to catch it before it flicked overboard but the sail had already partially folded up in the sudden slackening. One side of the raft dropped. Kairi's heart thumped as she tried to make up for the loss with the remaining sails. She'd felt the pain of falling out of a tree before, she could almost imagine what falling out of the air would feel like. She looked ahead and with a spark of hope realised they were actually quite close to the main island beach.

The raft dropped onto the water roughly, skidding and skipping as the propellers spluttered. A front corner sunk. The raft bucked its passengers off and capsized. The mast stuck in the soft sand and snapped. Kairi and Zexion tumbled over themselves in the shallow water. They both scrambled to their hands and knees, gasping for breath when they broke the surface and coughing and gagging at the acrid taste, smell and feel of salt water in their mouths, down the back of their throats and up their noses.

Once they managed to catch their breaths they turned around, daring to see what had become of their vessel. It was a terrible wreck – upside down, in two pieces and slowly sinking further. They looked at each other. Suddenly Kairi burst into peals of laughter and captured Zexion in a huge hug. Zexion embraced her back. Laughter as a relief reflex was something he understood scientifically, just like the rush of adrenalin and hormones that created the sensation of exhilaration. It was the only reason why he was able to find himself laughing too. Unfortunately, it only made the hole inside him feel bigger and hollower but as Kairi pulled away he mimicked a smile just for her.

"Wasn't that amazing?!" she exclaimed, putting her hands on his shoulders. "I've never done anything like that before! Just-just being up there! The islands look so different! An-and we were going so fast and just the feel of it and-and—"

She embraced him tightly again. "Thanks for doing this for me. Thanks for doing this _with_ me."

"It was no problem," he said, standing up and helping her to her feet. Her excitement had rendered her legs jelly-like and her ankle was still smarting. He prepared himself to make an insincere statement: "I was happy to do this."

Too elated to stop grinning, Kairi just shook her head. "You don't have to pretend to feel things for my sake. The fact that you were here is enough. It's the thought that counts."

"I'm going to smile anyway just to show you how much I appreciate your witticism." He did just that, ironically making a point of how fake it was. Kairi giggled. The two of them started to make their way up to the beach but paused when they looked up. A group of four small children in swimwear – two boys and two girls – stood frozen on the beach, wide-eyed and their mouths agape.

"Excuse me," one of the little girls piped up, "did you just fly here?"

Kairi's jaw dropped. She exchanged glances with Zexion and then looked back to the kids. "We sure did," she settled on saying.

"Whoa…" on the boys breathed, sniffing deeply afterwards like he had a cold.

"Can you show us the magic you used to do that?" the other boy asked.

"Actually, we didn't use magic this time," Kairi answered, putting her hands on her hips and thrusting her chest forward in pride. "We used physics."

"Wow! What's physics?"

The teens were quiet for a second, until Kairi elbowed Zexion in the side. "Explain how physics works," she whispered to him out of the corner of her mouth.

He looked at her but then sighed in resignation. "Alright."

They trudged out of the sea and got the children to gather around. Zexion drew numbers and figures in the sand with his finger while Kairi spruced them up with more fun drawings and sketches, using a finer twig. They talked of their flying raft, how gravity sometimes caused falling stars, and space rockets shooting up into the sky. The kids marvelled at it until it began to get dark, after which they took themselves home, talking excitedly amongst themselves about possibilities (especially the possibility of rockets).

Alone again, Kairi and Zexion took a seat on the end of the pier, basking in what was left of the sunlight, burning low on the horizon like a dying fire. Kairi slipped her hand into Zexion's and held it between them.

"We should do this again sometime," she said offhandedly.

"By 'this' are you referring to flying maritime vessels?" he asked.

"Absolutely. Next time, when you have a heart, we'll do this again," Kairi promised, smiling warmly when Zexion turned to look at her. "Maybe we'll use something bigger as well, like a ship."

"We'll definitely need magic for that."

The sea lapped and splashed under their feet. The stars twinkled into the sky one by one as the sun continued to sink. Kairi threaded her fingers between Zexion's and rested her head on his shoulder. He pressed his cheek into her hair and titled his head to look up at the growing night sky, vowing that one day he will sincerely reciprocate her affection.


End file.
